Raised by her grandmother, who used to sell vegetables from her garden, Khumalo remembers how she helped with the planting and raising of the crops.
“I think that is where my love of farming started.”
It is against this background that Khumalo started farming in 2022 in the Mecksame area, planting cabbages, bell peppers and potatoes. She named her business NDO Agribusiness.
Khumalo has an honours degree in Soil Science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
“After obtaining my degree, I never saw myself as being an employee at someone else’s business. I always had a vision of myself being an employer.”
She sells the produce from the farm to street vendors, local shops in Impendle, as well as to neighbours. She also uses social media to market her products. “I reach most of my customers through Facebook and TikTok.”
In addition, she teaches other smallholder famers online how to take soil samples, install a drip irrigation system, and how to plant in tunnels using grow bags.
She declares that connecting with nature is one of the things she most enjoys about farming.
“It is great to be outdoors, and I gain a great deal of satisfaction by growing food and being independent.”
Being a farm business owner brings some challenges. She recounts that the past season brought excessive rainfall, which resulted in an increase in plant diseases.
“My potatoes were affected by late blight, while the bell peppers and cabbages were rotting. This [resulted in] additional chemical application costs. ”
The heavy snowfall during the previous season destroyed the net structure in which she grew bell peppers.
“We had to take all the profit from last year to rebuild the shade house this year,” says Khumalo.
She dreams of expanding her farm to 50ha and says that in the near future, she would like to move away from open field production and produce everything in tunnels as this will give her more control over climate variations. 
The Metropolitan Collective Shapers programme
Being active on social media, she became aware of the Metropolitan Collective Shapers programme.
“I took the chance and applied, and I will never look back!”
“A Collective Shaper is an entrepreneur with self-belief and an unwavering purpose that drives him/her to make an impact in their communities and the broader public. And that has always been my goal. I want to bring change to the Impendle area and want to set an example. Other young people must see that it is possible to be young and be an entrepreneur, especially in the agriculture sector.”
According to Khumalo, she learnt a great deal through the programme and stresses that she benefitted most from the business coaching.
“It was beyond everything I expected. The in-person classes were on the next level: structured but also interactive. These financial classes presented by FNB changed my life. Previously I thought I was making a profit, but I was not doing my books right and keeping records properly. The class made me realise that the company was still at the breakeven stage.”
The course made her realise that she needs to improve her financial skills, and she enlisted in a financial short course focusing on bookkeeping.
She adds that her mentor, Thabo Oliver, was an excellent mentor. “He came to the farm and after assessing everything, showed me what I can do to improve.”
She says she also benefitted from the interaction between the 10 finalists in the programme.
“We shared ideas and helped each other solve farming problems. I also think that the knowledge I gained through the programme will benefit my community. The cash injection I received helped me to purchase more inputs and increased my production offering jobs to people in the community. If I am successful, the community will be successful as they will have job opportunities and products to buy.”
She states that the Metropolitan programme enriched her life and, on a practical level, also helped to market her business more professionally.
“Thank you Metropolitan! This was indeed a life-changing opportunity.”
Follow her on TikTok @Nolukhumaloo.
